


it's only a change of time

by besidemethewholedamntime



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Comfort, F/M, Family, spoilers for aos series finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:36:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25904446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/besidemethewholedamntime/pseuds/besidemethewholedamntime
Summary: *Contains spoilers for AoS series finale*"It’s not the same now. While he wishes that they didn’t have to suffer what they did, he knows that they would both do it all over again if it got them back to their daughter. If it got them back to Alya. He would never, could never, change his daughter for any of anything they have gone through in the world."Fitz on the family he loves so much. Canon Compliant to 7x13.
Relationships: Leo Fitz/Jemma Simmons
Comments: 34
Kudos: 119





	it's only a change of time

**Author's Note:**

> well. oh. my gosh. 
> 
> I could probably write a very long author's note on how I'm feeling and it still wouldn't be enough so just two things. 1) I am so unbelievably overjoyed at the Fitzsimmons ending we got because oh wow did they deserve it!! 2) I am so unbelievably in denial that this show is now over and I don't think it'll kick in for another good couple of days. I could go on and on about either point but if you want to squeal with me more about it then feel free to find me on tumblr!
> 
> This is just something short I started writing on the train because I have *so* many feelings. It will likely not be the only work I write on the Fitzsimmons family now, but it's the one that came out first. I imagine every fs writer is feeling the same - there's just so much to work with!! Very exciting times. 
> 
> Title is from 'Change of Time' by Josh Ritter. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy!!

Leopold Fitz once loved Jemma Simmons more than anything else in the whole world.

If asked he would never have been able to pinpoint the exact moment that he fell in love with her, and so it’s just as well she never did. He’s thought it a lot over the years, those on Earth and those in that distant star system, about which moment it could have been that was _the_ moment. What moment was it where she became everything to him, so vital that without her he would simply cease to be?

He knows the moment he _realised_ it, of course. The moment that Coulson had told them that Agent Simmons was infected with the virus. He’d said it sombrely but with a tinge of hope in his voice, like the optimist he always was, especially in those days. A voice that seemed to say _I know how it looks, but we know what we’re dealing with now and we will deal with it. We’ll fix it. It’ll all be alright in the end._

Fitz often wonders now if he would believe Coulson, as he did back then. He will always have faith in Jemma and her ability to problem-solve when lives are on the line, but he wonders if his faith would be as blind as it had been. That he would readily and eagerly believe Coulson’s soft voice and hopeful eyes as he had done. Perhaps the Fitz he is now, who has seen all that he has seen and done all that he has done, wouldn’t have such belief in a happy ending.

 _At the Academy, Sci Ops, this plane. You’ve been beside me the whole damn time._ He’d meant to insult her. They were bickering as they always did and he’d meant to annoy her as she had annoyed him. _Look,_ he had meant to say, _you haven’t done anything more than I have in the whole time we’ve been together. You are not better than me._ But instead what had come out was a heart-wrenching truth that had admitted to them both how terrified he was of losing his most favourite constant, indeed one of the only constants, in his life ever since he was sixteen.

For they have always been together. Everywhere they went, everything they did, they were _Fitzsimmons._ Singular. As one. Maybe not healthy, maybe not what should have been done, but it’s what it was. And he wouldn’t have changed it. She was his best friend, and one of the only people who understood what it was to feel simultaneously too big for the room you were in, and too small to hold all the knowledge that the world wanted you to know.

As soon as it had left his mouth he’d realised what he had said, and he realised that he meant it. And then he’d begged her to fix this, because she just had to. If she didn’t then what?

The list of his nightmares has grown exponentially over the years, every new mission adding something else for him to be afraid of. Every now and again this one comes back around, though, that old favourite of Jemma falling out of the plane. She falls and keeps on falling while he struggles with the straps of a parachute and the dream ends the same way it always does – he never makes it in time.

That’s how he _knew_ he loved her. He hadn’t even thought about it or the fact that he had no idea what he was doing – all he knew was that each second Jemma slipped further and further away from him and he just had to get her back. For months afterwards it tormented him, and he asked himself all the questions of _why_ and _how_ but never _when._ That was clear in an instant, and in that same moment he had sworn to himself he would never let her get hurt again. If only he had known.

He used to wish that they’d left then. In those dark times when they were both struggling and he’d gotten a traumatic brain injury and Jemma had been swallowed by a monolith, he used to wish they’d just left. He loved the team, but he always loved Jemma more. It just didn’t seem worth it to risk losing every time.

It’s not the same now. While he wishes that they didn’t have to suffer what they did, he knows that they would both do it all over again if it got them back to their daughter. If it got them back to Alya. He would never, could never, change his daughter for any of anything they have gone through in the world.

 _Is this about the blood work?_ Yes and no, except it had been more of a yes than he had been letting on. They hadn’t known it for sure at that point but they had known enough. They deserved some time with each other to just live for themselves after living for others for so long. To live for themselves and their _daughter._ Didn’t she deserve to have just a few years of being happy with her parents before they even opened themselves up the possibility of it going wrong and it not being the happy ending they wanted? Didn’t she deserve that?

When Jemma was pregnant, he had been so obsessed with ensuring she was alright and everything was going smoothly, that he never fully stopped and asked himself if he loved the little bean growing inside of her. Fitz has been nervous and he has been scared many times in his life, but he can honestly say that those months, while he was waiting to become a father, were the most nerve-wracking. What did he know about being a good father? They were alone in space. There was nobody left to teach him how.

It changed in an instant the moment he met Alya. She opened her eyes and looked at him, properly looked deep into his soul, and smiled. He knew he loved her more than anyone he had loved before. A deep, unmoving, unshakable and unconditional love, the likes of which he had never felt in his life so far. Cradling her head with his hands, looking into her impossibly blue eyes, he had promised to give her everything he had for as long as he lived, and beyond.

Sometimes he wonders if they did the right thing, raising her on a spaceship for near enough the first four years of her life. Now, in their cosy house in Perth with all of the conveniences of modern Earth, he sits and watches Alya be fascinated with the grass or the trees, running her fingers through them as though she can’t quite believe they’re real. When it rains she tips her head back and opens her mouth, declaring it’s the best thing she’s ever tasted. The first time it snowed she stayed out until her fingers turned blue and Jemma had to lure her in with hot chocolate and a biscuit. Sometimes she looks out the window and finds it odd that the sky changes so very often when nearly every day of her life it has always looked the same.

All of these things both he and Jemma took for granted. The trees and the birds and the rain were all normal to them, the stars a place to be explored. For Alya, the stars are her home, and the place where she now finds herself living is the adventure.

Jemma tells him that they did the right thing. Alya is happy and healthy, knows all of her letters and numbers, and can very firmly tell them that she prefers carrots over broccoli. What more could a parent ask for than that? _She’s only four, Fitz. She has the rest of her life to figure out everything else_ Jemma reminds him when he stares a little too long at the village primary school as they pass it on their walks, or when she catches him looking up milestones on his phone when he thinks she’s not looking.

Gifts arrive constantly. They retired from the team but never from the family. More gifts arrive than he could possibly imagine, and once, when an impossibly large teddy bear arrives, he gets huffy and says to Jemma, “What the hell does she need this for? She doesn’t even _like_ bears.”

Jemma shakes her head and says nothing, and he spends the rest of the day in the garden with Alya helping make a small flower patch for her next to Jemma’s rosebushes. Alya loves the different types of flowers he helps her plant, and her amused giggles plus the way she holds the plants as if they are the most precious thing in the world puts him in a much better mood. He apologises sheepishly to Jemma that night in bed, but she just shakes her head again, smiling that all-knowing smile of hers.

“It’s fine, Fitz. You’re just jealous.”

“What? I’m not jealous.”

She gives him a disbelieving look. “You most definitely are. You’ve never had to share her before and now you’re all grumpy because there are other people in her life now.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says loftily, which only makes Jemma laugh. “I shared her with you.”

“It’s different. I’m her mother and you love me.” She pats his leg tenderly. “Don’t worry about it too much. You’ll always be special to her.”

He doesn’t like to admit she’s right, but isn’t she always? _Special isn’t her favourite_ some part of him wants to huff, but he knows he would never live it down. It’s just that for four years he and Jemma were Alya’s everything. They were her whole world. She knew of her grandparents and her aunts and uncles of course, but they weren’t real, tangible people to her. He and Jemma and Enoch were all she knew.

For years he read her stories and tucked her into bed at night. He made her clothes and her stuffed animals, and he would sneak her snacks as she sat on his knee while he worked. She used to look for him if she had a bad dream or if she just wanted to snuggle, and if Jemma ever said no to anything (which she was never prone to doing) then she would find her father and widen her eyes and plead with him to say yes.

It’s not that he doesn’t want other people in her life, because he does. He wants Alya to have all that he never did when he was younger, and he loves that everybody loves her nearly as much as he and Jemma do. It’s just they used to give her _everything._ A very selfish part of him wants to keep her just for himself, to have it be him and Jemma and Alya forever. It’s so hard to let go, even just the smallest bit, of someone you love so very much.

He knows Jemma secretly works when she thinks he’s asleep. A better liar she may have become, but she’s still never very good around him. He doesn’t mind it. Jemma’s always been one to keep busy and keep on helping, and he had known for a fact that they would never fully ‘retire’ anyway. It’s just not in their nature. He’ll go back to it someday when he’s ready, but for now he’s content to simply rest and watch as Alya jumps in muddy puddles when it rains, or as she says good morning to the sun every time it appears without fail.

Sometimes he goes to walk into Alya’s room and finds both her and Jemma in the bed together, Jemma curled around her daughter, protecting her as she always has. Other times he finds them in the kitchen together, one brown and one blonde head bent together over a picture book, reading along with each other. Once he came back from the shop and found them baking together, only it clearly hadn’t gone to plan because flour was everywhere, coating the counters like snow. Their laughter had rung out long after it had all been cleared away, and he can still hear it in his mind, even now.

The love he feels for both of them is immeasurable. He has a family, the most beautiful family, and to go through all they have only to get here now feels like a gift he still can’t always believe he has been given. Often, during those moments when he is watching her, Alya will look over and smile at him. A smile of utter love and trust, knowing he’s there because of course he’s there. Where else would he be? There is nothing in the whole world he loves more than her.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!! Please feel free to leave kudos/comments. Please feel free not to. I hope everyone is doing okay after the finale and that you're staying safe and well <3


End file.
